Google maps now in Chinese

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Google maps now in Chinese

ditu.google.cn

bill

8:00 am on Feb 13, 2007 (gmt 0)

I see that Google China has added maps to their list of services:

[ditu.google.cn ]

Most cities don't have much detail, but major roads appear to be in place. Cities like Shanghai and Beijing have a bit more mapped out.

The service seems popular as everything is very slow to access, at least for me from Japan. I am seeing them making access calls to this address: mapgoogle.mapabc.com
So Google is using a 3rd party for their Chinese language map overlays?

exploser

10:03 am on Feb 13, 2007 (gmt 0)

Yes, its great!
but what a pity that Hong Kong is still not available...

i can see in map.google.com, there is Hong Kong map details, but searching of location seems not yet ready~

irock

3:22 pm on Feb 13, 2007 (gmt 0)

HK is freaking empty in the eyes of Google Map except for the road fragments.

nomatter

7:38 pm on Feb 13, 2007 (gmt 0)

actually google use data from mapabc.com

bill

12:40 am on Feb 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

The mapabc people must not have the infrastructure to handle the demand from Google. That seems to be the bottleneck in the speed of this service.

How do the other portal's mapping services compare? Is there a market leader for the mapping segment in China?

bd4rr

1:37 am on Feb 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

It seems Google china dropped chinese version of Google Local (bendi.google.com) and went for maps instead.

bill

1:44 am on Feb 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

I had forgotten about that. ;)

Google's local search in China [webmasterworld.com] (Sep. 3, 2005)

Google China's local search does redirect to maps now.

How is the coverage of local establishments? They've had a few years to work on this already.

shri

4:31 am on Feb 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

>> HK is freaking empty in the eyes of Google Map except for the road fragments.

Plenty of good alternatives. Not really an issue.

What I've found an issue is being able to search, in English on the Asian versions of the Google maps. How about allowing me to type an address in English and getting an English overlay for Tokyo?

Would be an awesome service for some of these cities which attract a lot of tourists and business travelers.

bill

5:45 am on Feb 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

What I've found an issue is being able to search, in English on the Asian versions of the Google maps.

I'd second that request. It's understandable that they might not have the same degree of coverage as the local language version, but English would be nice for a lot of Asia.

How about allowing me to type an address in English and getting an English overlay for Tokyo?

To a certain degree you can type in addresses in Romanized Japanese (English alphabet). You'll get a Japanese language map, but most searches will work. It's not perfect.

How is the accuracy of the China maps if you enter Pinyin?

exploser

6:46 am on Feb 15, 2007 (gmt 0)

>>>> HK is freaking empty in the eyes of Google Map except for the road fragments.

>>Plenty of good alternatives. Not really an issue.

I would like to know whats the good alternatives? Thanks